Is there a list of the biblical meaning of numbers?

Answer 1

If you mean The Book of Numbers then the meaning of the book is "The fourth book in the Old Testament. Moses wrote the book of Numbers. The book of Numbers relates the story of Israel's journey from Mount Sinai to the plains of Moab on the border of Canaan. One of the important lessons it teaches is that God's people must walk by faith, trusting his promises, if they are to continue successfully. It recounts God's punishment of Israel for disobedience and provides information about Israelite laws. The name of the book is derived from the prominence of census figures (Num. 1-2, 26).

If you mean the use of numbers then there is no difference then and how we use them now.

Answer 2

There's no scripture that directly tells the meaning of numbers, but there have been interpretations made from The Bible. Too much to write here. Do a Google search for "biblical numerology" or "meaning of numbers in the Bible".

Answer 3

The biblical authors did not leave behind a list of numbers and their meanings, but we can deduce which numbers had special meanings in ancient numerology, by looking at Bible passages.

The number 7 was, of course, the number of days in a week, as well as being the number of days in one phase of the moon and the number of celestial spheres in Jewish and early Christian belief. When Jacob worked 7 years for Leah and a further 7 years for Rachel, this could also be understood in terms of phases of the moon. Luke's genealogy of Jesus had great men occur in multiples of 7 generations starting from Adam, with: Enoch at 7; Abraham at 21; David at 35; Jesus at 77. Using a different version of the same genealogy, Matthew says there were 14 generations (2 X 7): from Abraham to David; from David to Josiah; from Josiah to Jesus. These patterns were quite intentional on the part of the two evangelists, because they had to depart from the Old Testament genealogies to achieve the desired outcomes.

Another number that appears to have had special meaning was 12, the number of constellations in the zodiac. Jacob had 12 children, as did Ishmael. There were to be 12 tribes of Israel but one son of Jacob, Levi, was to be the ancestor of the priestly class and did not lead a tribe. This seems to have been resolved by having two sons of Joseph each head up a separate tribe, creating an asymetrical hierarchy. Jesus has 12 disciples.

A number of importance in determining the lifespans of all the legendary heroes from Adam all the way down to Joshua is 17. If we look, for example, at the lifespans of the Hebrew patriarchs: Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the Bible says that:

1. Abraham lived to 175 (5 X 5 X 7)
2. Isaac lived to 180 (6 X 6 X 5)
3. Jacob lived to 147 (7 X 7 X 3)

• Each lifespan involves a perfect square (5, 6, then 7 in a numeric series),
• the third factor also forms a series (7, 5, 3)
• in each case the sum of the factors is 17.

Perhaps the authors of Genesis enjoyed using perfect squares. Joseph is sometimes referred to as the fourth Patriarch, and his lifespan fits into the elegant pattern of the Patriarchs, but as the last man in Genesis also that of the first man in Genesis, Adam. Joseph is attributed the lifespan of 110 years:

• 110 = 5X5 + 6X6 + 7X7, the same series of squares as we saw for the Patriarchs
  
• 110 = (10X10 + 10) - Joseph's lifespan
  
• 930 = (30X30 + 30) - Adam's lifespan
  

The number 40 was easy to remember and was used when the author or story-teller did not really know the real facts. Some examples where this is used, with the intention of portraying an exact period of time include:

In the Bible, Kings David and Solomon both reigned for exactly forty years. The narratives go into great detail about supposed minutiae in the lives of these kings, so it can be said that 40 was really intended to be understood to be the actual years of their reigns.

In the same way, in the story of Noah's Flood the rains came down for forty days and forty nights. there are actually two stories of the Flood and one story has the flood subsiding in just forty days, while the other says that it lasted one year - also an easy number to remember.

The Israelites wandered in the wilderness for 40 years during the Exodus. The biblical narrative and lives of the participants necessarily show this to represent an actual timespan. Then, in the Book of Judges, the number of years of peace brought about by each of the major judges, or the number of years of their ruling, is a multiple of 20, except only in the case of Jephthah, who is said to have ruled Israel for only 6 years. Forty was not the only number to represent the judges, and the use of other multiples of 20 no doubt gives an impression of careful accuracy.

In the synoptic gospels, Jesus spent 40 days in the wilderness after his baptism. In Acts of the Apostles, Jesus ascended to heaven 40 days after his resurrection, although in Luke's Gospel, by the same author but somewhat earlier, he ascended to heaven on the evening of the day of his resurrection.

Answer 4

EWBullenger has a printed work on biblical numerics